


The Superman Conundrum

by vermicious_knid



Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, the fact that these two did not end up together in the show is a travesty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28581843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vermicious_knid/pseuds/vermicious_knid
Summary: “See? That took no time at all.” she said, but her voice sounded weak and strange.“Actually, it was more like a quarter of a second.” Sheldon mumbled, still looking at her for answers - waiting for her to yell BAZINGA! But the kiss went by unexplained, and he was left feeling very strange about it himself.
Relationships: Sheldon Cooper/Penny
Comments: 20
Kudos: 76





	1. Chapter 1

It had all started innocently enough - nothing out of the ordinary about the situation at all. 

On a rainy monday afternoon the guys had decided to give Vegas another go, while Sheldon opted to stay behind - just like last time. 

Penny had come in with take out food at precisely six o clock (italian, the horror) as she was wont to do on any regular weeknight - despite Sheldon’s vehement protests that she should follow a linear schedule. 

“What are you watching?” She asked as she sat down next to him on the couch. He was half-way through his pad thai and with a slump of defeat set down his utensils in order to converse with the uncultured heathen. 

“The first superman movie, as should be obvious by all appearances.”

Penny nodded, opening her container of pasta on the table. Although she remembered to put down a napkin under the container in case moisture leaked through the styrofoam, she did not heed the many warnings about also keeping a napkin in her lap at all times. Sheldon repressed a sigh at her horrible lack of table manners.

“Huh, I actually like that one.”

Sheldon shot her a sidelong glance, wishing she could be quiet so that he could enjoy the movie in peace.

“ _ Yes _ \- I recall it being your favorite for a variety of arguable reasons.” he said, and then there was a blissful silence. 

For about roughly 5 seconds. 

“But the fact that they don’t kiss is such a bummer.” Penny muttered around a forkful of puttanesca, and Sheldon’s eyes widened as he pressed the pause button on the controller and turned to stare at her like she was mad. 

_ And here we go... _

“What?”   
  


“Penny, I know that you belong to a species that does not have the same superior genes and thus requires a certain quota of physical displays of affection in your fictional tv soaps and films, but do you really consider Clark Kent’s and Lois Lanes relationship to be emotionally void simply because they do not swap saliva? If so, your understanding of romance I must say is very narrow - but of course that does not surprise me.”

Penny rolled her eyes, used to his rants. 

  
  


“Alright moon pie, get off your high horse. I’m just saying that the movie doesn’t feel very satisfying when the hot guy in spandex doesn’t smooch his lady love.” 

Sheldon’s whole body jumped a little - as it did when he was on his way to getting thoroughly aggravated. He gestured between Penny and the screen with theatrical gestures, while Penny herself was slowly starting to smile. 

She loved riling him up. 

“And I suppose if you had directed this masterpiece, kissing scenes would have been aplenty and Superman would have missed his chance to save the world in order to get an oral infection?”

“Come on, you never complained about the kissing when we watched Spiderman!”

“That’s because Peter Parker is very much romantically inclined and so it suits his character and pathos to be making out with Mary jane every five minutes. “

Sheldon thought that was the end of the argument - he had clearly won. But no, Penny was not done. 

“But it doesn’t “suit” superman to kiss the love of his life?” she asked after a moment, just as he was about to take another bite of his food.  _ She had timed that hadn’t she?  _ He didn’t even look at her this time as he spoke.

“Penny, Superman has a lot more important issues going on than kissing a subpar journalist.”

“Not even a small peck on the lips? That takes like what, a second?” That question made him thoughtful, as it brought up one of his few comfort zones - math. He inclined his head at her question, already seeing an experiment taking shape in the near future. 

“I would have to gather data on that in order to give you an affirmative answer.”

Penny hummed thoughtfully. 

“Fine, here’s your data.”

Then she leaned over and kissed him quickly on the lips. 

_ Her lips tasted like tomatosauce. _

Sheldon didn’t move at first - but then he turned his head to look at her - his dark expression searching, wondering. 

  
  


Penny herself looked pleased for a moment - but then her expression turned curiously blank. Her eyes shifted from her food to the tv and back to Sheldon - like she couldn’t figure out how it had happened. 

““See? That took no time at all.” she said, but her voice sounded weak and strange. 

“Actually, it was more like a quarter of a second.” Sheldon mumbled, still looking at her for answers - waiting for her to yell BAZINGA! But the kiss went by unexplained, and he was left feeling very strange about it himself. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

After the kiss, both were quiet for the rest of the movie.

A tense silence reigned in which Penny finished her dinner in record speed, standing up from her seat on the couch as soon as the credits began to roll on screen. 

“Good night Sheldon!” She said quickly, taking the empty food carton with her as she all but ran out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her. 

Sheldon had not finished his thai food - nor had he really payed any attention to the movie after the kiss. He had sat completely still, trying to make sense of what had just occurred. 

There were many factors to deal with, such as Penny’s motivation for kissing him - had it been purely a scientific endeavor, one of her usual feminine pranks or was there any emotional sentiment behind it? 

Usually when Penny was joking ( bestowing unwanted or spontaneous acts of physical affection upon his person) she always smiled or laughed afterwards, calling him moonpie - even though she was strictly prohibited from doing so. But this time she had not done any of those things - she had looked very puzzled herself - and if he wasn’t wholly mistaken, a bit scared. 

Sheldon looked down at his hands and noticed that they were shaking. 

How  _ fascinating _ . 

* * *

In the days that followed, they did not attempt to ignore one another. In fact, they continued on with their lives in its usual tempo and for all intents and purposes, everything was back to normal.

Everything except for the fact that Penny had not met his eyes at all since the night of the kiss. It was all very confusing. She still talked to him as per usual, but it was different now that Penny didn’t look directly at him. 

It felt like he was a ghost she was communicating with, which was an insinane idea and he wholly blamed her for it and the night she had forced him to watch Ghost so she could practice the ritual of ogling barechested men and their failing attempts to sculpt clay. 

It was getting ridiculous, and Sheldon almost felt proud of himself for waiting to say anything about it until saturday night - laundry night. Leonard would call it a progress for his lacking sense of tact. 

Normally, if Penny was home on saturday she would accompany him to the laundry room and pester him a little. This saturday however, she had not come out of her apartment at exactly 7 o clock and he was left standing by her door - staring at it like he might be able to open it with his mind. 

This was unusual. 

It was an anomaly. 

He wanted to be pestered, and she was not pestering him. 

“Penny.”

_ Knock _

“Penny.”

_ Knock _

“Penny.”

It took her 5 seconds longer than usual to open the door - a fact which he filed away to be analyzed later that night and taken into account for the work on his whiteboard -Leanord had said it currently looked like something Theodore Kaczynski might conjure up. 

When Penny opened the door, she eyed his chest - not his eyes. Again, peculiar. She looked very uncomfortable, which he couldn’t understand either.

Something else that was also peculiar was the amount of distress he felt over this matter. 

“Penny, it’s laundry night.” he said, as if he didn’t need to explain further. Penny leaned against the door and raised her eyebrows at him, unimpressed.

“So?”

“Aren’t you going to follow me downstairs and complain about the way I fold my underwear?”

“No Sheldon - have a good time with that.”

“Well, why not? As you are home and not working a shift at the cheesecake factory and not out dancing or on a date, I fail to see a reason that would keep you away from me.”

FInally, Penny met his eyes. There were small shadows under each eye that he noticed just then, as if she hadn’t been getting enough sleep. They stared at each other in silence for a beat, until Penny caved, her body relaxing slightly as she rolled her eyes. 

“Fine. I do have some clothes I need to wash anyway. I’ll meet you downstairs in a few minutes ok?” 

Sheldon tried to tell himself that he was satisfied with this. He had gotten Penny to do what they usually did together - but the fact that he had to remind her was troubling. 

* * *

When they usually were in the laundry room, the atmosphere was chaotic and casual. Now it was simply opressing and uncomfortable and Sheldon had no idea why. He had been thinking it over all week - this odd behavior from Penny, who was currently standing a few feet away from him, staring into the dryer with an odd look on her face. 

But then he finally came to an epiphany. He put down the shirt he was inspecting for stains and breathed in deeply before speaking at an alarming pace.

“Penny, does your recent problem with eye contact and social protocols around me have to do with the kiss you bestowed upon me last week?”

Penny sighed and leaned against the nearest wall like she wanted to turn invisible. 

“....Do we have to talk about it Sheldon?” she asked and Sheldon frowned at this. 

“Yes I think we do, since it clearly troubles you. If you think I am offended by the action still, I am not and I have forgiven you.”

Penny’s gaze snapped up at him and her posture became stiff. 

“ _ What?”  _ she asked in a low voice, almost a hiss.

Sheldon had been working on the theory that Penny was expressing a sense of guilt over her wanton behavior towards her friend, but her response now seemed to indicate something else entirely. It had seemed like the safest thing to say in order to placate her, but apparently he had been wrong. 

He tried to say it differently.

“It was a sudden primal instinct you had no way of controlling, nothing more. I perfectly understand.” 

A tense silence reigned in the room - the only sound coming from the washing machines, thumping away like a slow heartbeat. Penny looked out the window and smiled - but it wasn’t a happy one. 

“You’re right Sheldon - it was not like it actually _ meant  _ anything.”   
  


“Right.”

“Right.”

Sheldon found himself staring at the graceful line of her back against the wall - her smaller stature somehow more in focus just then. Penny looked back at him, and he noticed that her ponytail was messy - but he didn’t object to it. He folded his arms across his chest because his hands were suddenly itching to do something, btu he didn’t know what.

The dryer started beeping in the room, but neither of them heard it.


	3. Chapter 3

Two weeks passed and everything was relatively normal. 

Howards space toilet malfunctioned, they lost a robo-fight to Kripke, the hunt for the coveted rare 16th issue of Batman and the Outsiders (military intelligence had been involved in that one - don’t ask) and a live cow may or may not have been smuggled into the university for pranking purposes which ultimately met a dead end. 

So in short, a fairly normal turn of events. 

Penny was her bright, happy self everyday - now displaying no trouble in talking to Sheldon or spending time with him. 

Meanwhile, Sheldon was getting more and more aggravated by this _ madness.  _

What that madness actually was, he could not actually explain. At first he had been perfectly pleased that both him and Penny had been in agreement that their impromptu lip-touching did not “mean anything”. At least, he had thought he would be. 

Instead he found himself replaying the event in his head over and over - not the kiss, but the way Penny had looked in the laundry room that night. He had analyzed her facial expressions in his mind, how unhappy she had looked even though  _ they had come to an agreement.  _

“Sheldon? Are you okay?” Leonard asked from across the room from his spot on the couch.   
  


Sheldon realized that he had been staring into the fridge for so long that his legs were beginning to freeze. 

* * *

On tuesday night, he watched her like a hawk as she worked. The gang was there for their usual cheesecake factory experience (annoying other diners, playing RISK while arm wrestling, howard trying to chat up women unsuccessfully at the bar). 

Sheldon was unsure what he was looking for. 

Penny noticed him looking and stopped by their table, raised eyebrows. She was wearing a silver chain necklace he didn’t recognize and her lips were parted in a way he hesitated to describe as  _ eager _ .

“Honey, what’s with the stare? Did they get your order wrong? “ she asked, and she was hovering so near him that he could see that several strands of her hair had escaped her ponytail. 

His hands clutched his utensils and he looked away. 

“No. It was excellent, as usual. “

There was no logical explanation for why he was feeling so  _ disappointed _ .

* * *

“Oh my god.”

Raj looked up from his intense reading of the latest issue of Daredevil to see his bespeckled friend staring in mute horror at the space over the fridge. 

“What is it Leonard?”

“Sheldon forgot to sort his cereal by fibre intake….”

* * *

Penny had no idea why Sheldon suddenly seemed to be so hellbent on picking arguments with her. Sure, he was usually quite eager to do so anyway - but this was a lot even for him. 

First it was about the high volume of her television set and how it disrupted his line of thinking, even from across the hall. Then it was a rant about picking and sorting trash properly for recycling, because _ did she really _ want to be the reason the statistics over dolphin deaths climbing to new soaring heights?

And there really was no mercy (not that he had ever been that considerate before) and he especially liked cornering her when she came home after a late shift at work. 

It was just her luck when Leonard knocked on her door after one such occasion and asked if she was willing to drive into the desert by five points so the guys could install some kind of earth-sampling device. At first she had just leveled him with a dead glare, wondering why on earth these people had decided to befriend her of all people. 

“Why don’t you drive?” She finally asked, and Leonard shrugged sheepishly.

“ I would, but I have to take Howard to the emergency room.”

“Peanuts?”

“Yeah ah...a woman was wearing peanut flavored lip gloss. 

“Eww.”

“Actually, it didn’t go anywhere near his lips…”

“Ok please shut up before I slam the door on you.”

Raj wasn’t able to come either due to some family emergency with Priya, so that left just Sheldon.

Great -  _ fantastic. _


	4. Chapter 4

Sheldon quickly put the sampling device in the backseat (strapping it in securely with seatbelts since Penny’s driving was known to be very ”gun-ho”) before getting into the passenger side.

Penny stood outside the car and debated for a full minute whether she wanted to get in at all.

”This is stupid.” She muttered to herself, trying to get a grip (on everything) and figured that the sooner she did this, the sooner it would be over. She had tried with Leonard to get someone else to drive – suggesting Kripke even, which was perhaps a bit desperate.

It was just Sheldon after all – her neighbor that she’d known for four years. He was harmless and annoying, but that was it.

Yeah, maybe if she repeated that last part enough, she could believe it.

* * *

The first twenty minutes passed by in a near total silence as Penny drove onto the freeway and passed by Altadena and two shopping malls.

”So where exactly at Five points are we stopping?” she asked, since he hadn’t told her yet.

Sheldon was looking at google maps on his phone, but would not show her the screen. He began to speak without looking up at her.

”I can’t tell you that until we’ve come closer to our destination – it’s not a personal slight against you, but you need to have clearance to know certain information about this device.”

Penny rolled her eyes and smirked.

”So what, are you afraid I might steal it?”

Sheldon turned his head slowly and looked at her through narrowed eyes.

_Oh dear fucking god._

”Would you?” he asked and Penny shot him an incredulous look.

”No Sheldon! God.”

* * *

An hour passed – they were now past most roadsigns, only a long stretching road in the middle of complete wilderness. It had begun to rain, and the only sound in the car was of the windshield wipers working furiously and the rain beating down heavily on the roof. The sky was dark – like an enveloping blanket above them.

It only made sense that the peaceful quiet could not last.

”I still can’t tell you though.” Sheldon suddenly spoke up and Penny groaned.

”So why am I even driving you out with this if it’s so secret?”

Sheldon nodded to himself and hummed thoughtfully.

”You’re right – I might have to blindfold you and drive myself the last couple of miles.”

Penny huffed and glared at him, beginning to regret that she ever sat in the car with him after all.

”Sheldon you are _not_ blindfolding me. You’re just going to have to trust me and you just won’t say who it was that drove you back at the university.”

”You are implying that I will have to lie – I do not lie Penny. ”

”Not even for something stupid like this? ” _Not even for me?_

That quieted him down for a moment and Penny actually thought that would be the end of it.

Of course it wasn’t.

”Fine, in the events that you will be called into questioning for being involved in a secret scientific project hosted by Caltech and the US military I might vouch for you. ”

”You _might_ vouch for me? _You might?_ ”

”Please Penny, you do not need to repeat yourself-”

”You would let me end up in prison over this?!”

”So about the blindfold – I have brought two kinds…”

Abruptly, Penny growled and drove the car to the side of the road and stopped. The rain was really pouring down now, and distantly thunder rumbled ominously. The check engine light was still blinking, but for once Sheldon had not made a single comment about it. Instead he looked outside and checked his phone if they were close to their destination – they were not.

”Penny, why have we stopped? We have not arrived at the designated destination.”

Penny had a hand pressed over her mouth and one still on the wheel. She did not respond to Sheldon’s question either. The thunder was closer now, catching in on them and Sheldon didn’t like that at all.

He whetted his lips and tried again.

”Penny-”

”You know Sheldon, you’re right. You’re _absolutely_ right. Of course you have no way of empathizing with my side of this, because you don’t have any empathy. Not a single lick of it. ” Penny was talking in a barely controlled, scratchy kind of voice that Sheldon had never heard from her before.

In the quiet beat that he didn’t respond she continued.

”If you really were a homu novus as you claim to be, you wouldn’t be knocking on my door three times each time – you wouldn't ask me so many annoying questions about how people behave because _you should already know_ right?”

She knew it was a low blow to be saying these things to him – but he really had pushed her too far this time.

Sheldon had turned quite pale and mute all of a sudden – a spark of rage in his eyes that just spurred Penny on. It was a good thing they had stopped or she was sure she would have crashed into a tree at this point merely out of anger.

”I know you think I’m the dumbest thing to walk the planet, but don’t you think it’s funny that I seem to be able to do all the things you can’t? I can fuck whoever I want, I can eat whatever I want I can -

  
Abruptly and with no warning, Sheldon opened his side of the car, got out and slammed the door behind him. Penny unbuckled her seatbelt and went out after him.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He was standing slightly bent over with his back turned to her when she approached.

”Excuse me! We’re not done here yet!” Penny yelled as she got close to him. Her hair and clothes were getting soaked but she was way past caring about that.

When Sheldon turned to face she thought for a second that he might have cried, but no. Instead his blue eyes blazed down at her and for the first time ever he seemed to be standing at his full height.

There was a frightening intensity to him now that made Penny almost forget how mad she was. He began speaking in an almost dreamlike voice that sounded very far away.

”I wish you would move away. I wish you would move far away and leave me alone. I wish you would obey me when I ask, but you _never_ do. Do you know how much time I’ve spent _wasting_ by talking to you, every day since you moved in across the hall? ”

He had begun advancing on her, making her walk backwards until her back hit the side of the car.

”It amounts to a staggering 20500 hours in total. My time is precious Penny – and you’ve taken up so much of it. Why?”

Unlike with Penny’s outburst, Sheldon actually expected her to answer this insane question. Her mouth had gone dry and she was frankly very confused over what he was talking about. She shook her head and tried to reason with him.

”No Sheldon, you _chose_ to do that. You chose to -” but he cut her off, his voice now raised. He was standing much closer now, and Penny had to lean back against the car so she wouldn’t be crowded. The whole time he would not take his eyes off her for even a second.

”To be your friend, yes. And I have been, in my opinion, an excellent one-”

Penny shoved him back and he stumbled for a step, but he wasn’t faced by it. He was still livid, still looming over her.

  
”No Sheldon! Excellent friends do _not_ put them in situations like this!”

And with that, lightning struck three feet away from where they were standing. It lit up the sky white and angel blue for the fraction of a second, the feel of the blast vibrating under their feet.

Penny’s ears were ringing and her eyes were wide – her heart hammering away like crazy. She blinked rainwater out of her eyes, and with a sort of numb gesture tugged at the bottom of Sheldon’s t-shirt.

”Come on, lets get back in the car. It’s not safe out here.”

Sheldon was still staring at the spot where lightning had struck – a darkened smudge in the dusty plain.


	5. Chapter 5

The ride back to Pasadena was a long one spent in tense silence.

Sheldon had not said anything else about using a blindfold, and Penny drove him to the spot for the setup of the device without comment (he had let his phone with the GPS pulled up rest in the cupholder so she could see where they were going).

It was lucky they didn’t run into any of the guys up the stairs, or they would have known right away that something was off. Penny’s mascara was all over the place, and both of them were soaked from the rain. Yet they did not run up the stairs in a hurry to avoid each other – instead they walked up as if a terrible exhaustion had come over them.

There was a vacant look in Sheldon’s eyes – he was faraway in his mind, somewhere in his mind palace.

It was only when they came to their floor that he seemed to register Penny walking over to her apartment door, and he watched as she opened it and went quietly inside.

Their eyes met for a moment and even Sheldon could tell which emotion was flashing in hers.

  
”You’re right Sheldon. I’m not going to waste any more of your time. ”

And with that she slammed the door after her, a sound that seemed to echo several times over.

Sheldon stared at her door for a long moment, before he walked up to it – his closed fist raised, hovering.

But he didn’t knock – he had lost the privilege – somehow he _knew_ that.

Instead he just let his fist rest against the door for a moment, as an odd form of farewell.

* * *

When he went inside his and Leonards apartment, he went over to his whiteboard and looked at it – it was completely covered with advanced calculations and post it notes.

It had been his way of trying to understand what was currently afflicting him – and even though her name wasn’t mentioned in his calculations, he knew that this was _all her fault._

He knew logically, that there must be a way to undo it all. At least he had hoped there would be, but so far he hadn’t been able to figure it out. Affection was just a matter of chemicals after all – even the kind that was as strong as this. He wondered if there was a poison that could fight this, kill it inside him but spare his body and mind.

It was possible – there was a chance that he could develop something experimental, something that could hold him over until he came up with a more permanent solution.

”Sheldon – why are you still up?”

Leonard turned on the lights in the living room, rubbing one eye tiredly as he walked in. Sheldon didn’t spare him a glance, pen twirling in hand and hair a wild mess.

”I’m working.”

Leonard walked over and carefully looked over the whiteboard, squinting and turning his head this way and that.

”Doesn’t look like work – or well, not the sane kind anyway. Have you hit a wall?”

Sheldon sat down in his spot on the couch, head in his hands and closed his eyes. He had still not changed out of his clothes from earlier, and there was mud on his pants.

”Leonard, I think I’m ill. ”

”You do look a little pale – do you want some nyquil?” Leonard asked and Sheldon sighed.

”Yes please.”

Leonard went over to the kitchen and got it out of the fridge, judging how much was left in the bottle (almost all of it) and brought it to Sheldon along with a small cup.

”Well it doesn’t surprise me – it’s been a while since either of us was sick so I suppose it was only a matter of ti-”

Instead of taking the designated cup, Sheldon grabbed the nyquil bottle, unscrewed the cap quickly and gulped it down like it was cheap beer. Leonard stood by and stared at his friend, his mouth open in disbelief.


End file.
